Joan broke his grasp with little or no effort. "Silly boy!" she said. "Do you really want to come in and visit a while before you say good night?" Her look was false with a winning softness. Fowey stammered. "You--you know--" "Then come along!" she said, with a laugh; and turning fled lightly before him up the darkened stairway. She had opened the door to the tiny private hallway of the flat when he overtook her, panting. She paused, with a warning finger to her lips. "S-sh!" she warned. "Don't wake Hattie!" He swore viciously, discountenanced; and she laughed and, leaving the door wide, went on into the small sitting-dining-room, meanly exulting in the discomfiture she had planned, knowing quite well that he had either forgotten Hattie or believed her to be spending this week-end out of Town, as before. In the act of lighting the gas, she heard the door close and saw Fowey come, white and shaken, into the room. "Hush!" she said gaily. "I'll make sure she isn't awake--" Removing her hat, she passed on into the adjoining bedroom, and stopped short with a sensation of sinking dismay. The room was empty, the bed she shared with Hattie untouched. So much was visible in the faint light entering through windows that opened on a well. Wondering, Joan struck a light. Its first glimmer revealed to her the fact that Hattie's trunk was gone. The flare of the gas-jet disclosed greater changes in the aspect of the room, due to the disappearance of Hattie's toilet articles and knick-knacks. Hattie had left, bag and baggage--had gone for good! But why? Had she discovered Joan's treachery? Or what had happened? And in her surprise and perplexity, the girl was conscious anew of that sense of loneliness. She had been afraid to return to the one whom she had betrayed so lightly; but now she was afraid to be without her. Going back to the adjoining room, she found Fowey standing beside the table and with a slight smile examining a sheet of paper. "I found this lying here," he announced, handing it over--"didn't realize it was anything until I'd read half of it." His smile was again confident, bright with premature pride of conquest. But Joan didn't heed it. She was reading rapidly what had been written, swiftly and in a sprawling hand, upon the half sheet of note-paper. "By rights I ought to stay until you come back, whenever you have the cheek to, and tell you what I think of you--I saw B. E. this evening and he told me all about it--but I want never to see you again--the rent's paid up till next Wednesday--then you can stick or get out--I don't care which--and I wish you joy of your bargain!--H. M." "You've been scrapping with Hattie, eh?" Joan heard Fowey say in an amused voice. Without answering, she let the sheet of paper fall to the table, and stood with head bowed in thought, suffering acutely the humiliation inspired by Hattie's contemptuous dismissal.